The Case of the Missing Monkey Man, or why I will never win the Parent of the Year Award.
Posted on | January 27, 2012 | 8 Comments
Monkey Man is gone.
Sully’s constant companion, best friend, and side kick has been misplaced. Sully has had him since birth. We rotated out monkeys over the first year as some became lost and some became destroyed by use, but since Sully turned one, he’s had the same Monkey Man. The tag was frayed perfectly. It smelled wonderfully musty no matter how many times I washed it. We have spares, but Sully can tell them apart easily despite our attempts to fray tags and dirty up the replicas. He knew his Monkey Man like the back of his hand.
I’ve check everywhere. Every drawer, the fridge, oven, microwave, trash, under couch cushions, in rooms we haven’t even been, the car. And he’s surely lost forever.
I hear Sully upstairs right now, during what should be naptime, cursing at his replacement monkey in a way that only toddlers can do. He keeps repeating, “Oh, bad monkey! Bad monkey tag! Wrong monkey!” Bless him. Here’s hoping he will adopt the replacement monkey soon and life can go on as normal. Until then, I’ll feel guilty and horrible for somehow losing Sully’s buddy.
The winter blahs.
Posted on | January 26, 2012 | 10 Comments
I am the first to admit, I get the winter blues. I despise January through March. When I was in school, I hated those months before summer and after Christmas break. As a grown-up, I’ve hated these months because they seem like a lag time. And as a girl who loves to get her work out in the great outdoors, the cold months and dreary weather keep me from enjoying myself. I need the sun and the fresh air to feel happy and good.
Lately, we have had some nasty weather, so when these past couple days have been sunny and spring-like, we’ve jumped all over the opportunity to get some outside time.
We have gone from inside forts and trucks…
to fallen leaves, dead bug hunts, and some much needed sunshine.
How are y’all spending your days? Unfortunately for us, I am staring out my window right now and watching the storm clouds roll into sight. Looks like some more fort time this afternoon.
Let’s talk about floors, baby.
Posted on | January 25, 2012 | 15 Comments
Taylor here. Sally talked me into writing a blog post, even though in college I did in my power to avoid writing. I love that girl.
So, let’s lay some floors, everyone.
First thing, get rid of the terrible carpet. There is no one, easy way to pull up that dog hair and dust riddled piece of fabric. Just make sure you all the carpet and padded floor up and out of your sight. As quickly as possible. We cut parts of it in half when we were dealing with too large of a section. Remember, our entire house was carpeted, and it wasn’t pretty.
Next, find a pair of needle nose pliers, get on your knees, and get ready to spend the next hour of your life pulling up the thousands of staples which previously adhered that beautiful carpet to your subfloor. It’s not fun, but it’s necessary. You don’t want to lay your floor on top of staples. Sweep and vacuum. There’s no telling how much dog/cat piss has saturated that carpet over the past twenty years. Based on the smell that radiated from our capets after being pulled up, we don’t even want to know what all has crossed its path.
Now you’re working with a blank canvas. Get your rolls of vapor barrier and roll them out along the floor. Make sure it runs perpendicular to the direction your floor will be laid. Laying the barrier this way will help prevent any moisture from coming up through your subfloor and ruining your hardwood. Some people choose to lay an insulayment down here, too. We passed for the main living areas because of the plywood subfloor. However, we will be using it in our bonus room that is a converted garage. The boys will be doing most of their playing there, and the extra insulation will help with heating and cooling.
Cut your moisture barrier to cover your entire floor. It’s okay to let each section overlap a bit. This overlap will help when you tape them together. When taping each section together you can use Painter’s or Duct tape, but make sure you run tape along the entire edge where both ends meet.
After all that work, it’s finally time to start laying your floor. Remember before you start this part, lots of different types of wood have color variations in them. You’ll want to pull from several different boxes as you go. Using entirely one box, then another, then another, may leave big color splotches in your room. Not cool.
Sally’s dad was there to help me with the whole process. If you can have an extra hand, I highly recommend it. Laying floor is time consuming and precise. You could do it on your own, but expect it to take about double or triple the time you allot.
Make sure you run your floor length wise, meaning the longest wall to wall distance should be the flow of your floor. By laying your floors in this direction, you’re providing extra support to your subfloor. You’ll want to keep a ¼ in gap between your floor and the wall. Most flooring stores sell these handy, little spacers that are the perfect size to put between your floors and walls. Wood shrinks and expands with the weather and humidity. You need to leave a little room for expansion so it doesn’t bust through your walls. I don’t know if that’s even possible, floors busting through walls, but it sounds like something you don’t want happening. Our floors are a “Click-in” floor. So basically, they have this little tongue and groove system that allows you to, literally, click them into place. No nails or glue required (except for transitions. We’ll talk about that in a minute). If you’re planning on DIY-ing your floors, a floating, click-in floor is the easiest option available.
To get the right pattern of your floor, you need to start every other section of flooring with half the length of one individual flooring section. Confused? See the illustration below:
We used a sweet multi-purpose saw with a very sharp blade. Bamboo is hard, folks.
If you leave all your pieces of wood the same size, it isn’t going to look good at all. You need some variation in size to get a nice, clean flow. Just when you get good and going, you’re going to run into an obstacle. In this case, the vent was our first challenge. The important thing to remember when you’re cutting angles is to measure. Then measure. Then measure again and again. Seriously, then measure one more time. Wood is expensive. The last thing you want to do is screw it up by making a bunch of bad cuts.
We also ran into a bit of a hard time with the fireplace. We found that no matter what we did, we seemed to have a gap along the edges. I think we’ll be putting some quarter round trim there, anyway, so hopefully the gap will cease to exist soon enough. This problem could have been solved by boarding the fireplace with wood when we started. Lesson learned.
Once you get in the swing of things, it’s not a hard process. There is a ton of cutting, which will slow you up some, but you shouldn’t have any difficulty actually laying the floors.
Look at all those wood variations. Sally said she wanted to lay on the floors and roll around in their glory. Can you blame her? They are pretty fantastic.
This entire room took my father-in-law and I about a full day to finish. I had to do some touch ups the next day, but then we were onto the foyer. The transition was a little harder than we anticipated. The foyer floor needed to run perpendicular to the living room floor.
We had to try to tap the floors into place without damaging them. One secret to this is using a piece of scrapwood between your mallet and your floor. You don’t want to leave dents and dings. You could potentially break up your tongue and grooves. No one likes a broken tongue. We also put a small amount of wood glue on these transition pieces. The last thing we wanted was for them to separate down the road. Bad, bad news.
Now, let’s step back for a minute and admire my handy work.
That’s better.
Okay, moving on…we also ran floors into the dining room.
Because it’s an older home, nothing is perfectly straight. Measuring is the key again. Make sure you measure. Am I being redundant? You may have to splice some wood to help it run up against a wall.
So let’s summarize:
-Clean
-Vapor barrier
-Insulayment (if you’re using it)
-Measure, measure, measure
-Cut
Some places will give a more reasonable quote. We got the quote of $2.99 per square foot for install. Which means, by me laying the floors, we will save almost $6,000. Unreal. It will take us longer, and things may not be exactly perfect, but $6,000 is nothing to sneeze at, and we’re happy with the results.
So, what do you think? Any of you considering laying your own hardwood floors?
(Floors are Morning Star Bamboo)
What I’m loving right now.
Posted on | January 23, 2012 | 6 Comments
Two words….Chesterfield Sofa.
Oh, my, how I want you. Get in my living room.
I’ve been browsing the web whenever I get a few free moments, gathering up lovely pictures of big, squishy, gorgeous Chesterfield Sofas used in all sorts of homes. And I am infatuated. I love how classic and beautiful a leather Chesterfield sofa looks, and I especially love it in surprsing colors like mustard, lagoon blue, and deep purple.
Old, worn Chesterfields that look lived in and lovely.
(Tumblr)
I particularly love when a Chesterfield Sofa takes the leading role in a room. A bright, velvet Chesterfield set to neutral and organic materials? Yes, please. This. All the way.
Or maybe…a little mid-century mod feel meets modern-day yumminess?
Yes, dear Chesterfield sofa, I will make you mine.
What are you loving these days? Maybe a big, squishy sofa or a tufted arm chair?
I’m going to go there.
Posted on | January 22, 2012 | 10 Comments
I said I wasn’t going to write about it. I said I didn’t want to hear the negative reactions and the accusations of abuse or neglect (because, honestly? I think they are shit). I said I was going to keep it to myself and my little family and do what worked best for us.
But then, I started getting emails. And messages. And text messages. And even phone calls. Other mamas wanting support. Wanting to know what I did, and how it worked, and whether we were happy with our decision or not.
And so, I’m going to go there.
Sleep training.
It’s whispered about in hushed tones at playdates. It’s skirted around on message boards and forums. Bloggers tip-toe around the subject. No one wants the judgment that sometimes comes with sleep training. No one wants to be made to feel guilty or like a bad mother. And can you blame us? As parents, we all want the best for our children. I lie awake at night, worrying about whether or not I am the mother my children deserve. I pray to God every. single. night. to help me be the mama to my babies that I should be…that He wants me to be. I read every book. I research and over-analyze every decision. I want nothing for the best for my children. And sometimes, what is best, isn’t what works for everyone.
We started the Ferber Method of sleep training for Arlo on Tuesday night. For those of you unfamiliar with his works, he advocates a “progressive waiting” method of checking on your child as they learn to put themselves to sleep. Every three, five, ten, fifteen minutes, you go in to soothe and calm your child. And then you leave, and they are given the opportunity to learn to put themselves to sleep. They don’t cry it out, and Ferber does not recommend extended periods of crying. But he does talk about just how important sleep is for development. It worked with Sully. Actually, it worked amazingly well, and I often said it was the best parenting decision I have ever made for him.
But Arlo is different. He’s sweeter, a bit more clingy and needy, and a better fighter of sleep. We feared our efforts would be met with hours of crying, endless trips to his room to soothe him, and eventually us giving up on sleep training and a baby in our bed until he’s sixteen.
I’m going to be perfectly honest with you. I absolutely support every parents’ decision on sleep. Unless you are leaving your child unattended to scream for hours or have your baby in the bed with you until he’s filling out college applications, you’re probably doing a good job. You’re probably doing what you think is best for you family. You’re probably considering every option and every piece of research available to help back up your decision. For us? Having Arlo in the bed any longer simply wasn’t an option. The time with my husband at the end of the day, sans babies, is incredibly sacred to me. I need that time with him to reconnect. I’m not talking just sex here, people (though, since we’re being honest, I do think sex and intimacy is incredibly important in a marriage). I’m also talking time to sit and chat. I’m talking about time to have a glass of wine and watch a movie without rocking a baby over and over and over again. I’m talking about time to have an argument or important discussion without worrying about it affecting your children negatively. We needed this time.
So we started it. Tuesday night, we went through our bedtime routine: solids, bath, lotion and powder, PJs, book, bottle, and bed.
We put him down about thirty minutes later than usual. I laid him in his crib and quietly walked out of the door. I waited for his cry with baited breath.
But it never happened. He talked for about fifteen minutes and then fell asleep until 1:30AM. When he woke, I pumped and gave him a bottle. I know some people try to cut out night time feedings while doing the Ferber method. But Arlo sucked down a huge bottle at 1:30AM, so I will continue to feed him at night unless he’s just snacking to go back to sleep rather than obviously being hungry. After eating, he fell back asleep until 7:40AM without a fuss.
What?
Taylor and I stared at each other and questioned whether we were being tricked by our six-month-old. We had planned on waiting to do nap training until Arlo figured out nights, but since the first night went so well, I decided to dive right into nap training. I put him down at 10:00AM with a tummy full of breastmilk. He talked for about ten minutes and crashed for another forty-five. Same story at 2:00PM for his second nap.
Over the next few days, we had good naps and not-so-good naps. Good nights, and not-so-good nights. But overall, it has been an incredibly smooth process. Each day gets easier. Each nap becomes longer. Arlo wakes up rested and happy every morning, and we are better rested than we’ve been in a long time. Which means, we’re better parents to the boys and spouses to each other than we’ve been a long time. I’m not naive enough to think that our experience with Arlo is typical of sleep training. I know many, MANY parents who have struggled much more. But, I wanted to share it because sleep trainining doesn’t have to be horrible. Sleep training doesn’t always mean hours of screaming and tears all around from everyone.
So I hope some sleep deprived mama reads this and sees that there is life after sleep training. It’s not for everyone. But it may not be as horrible as you expect. And if you have any questions about how we sleep trained, feel free to ask. I’d love to help anyone I can.
(I shouldn’t have to say this, but please consult your pediatrician before making any serious, parenting decision. I am not an expert, I’m a blogger. And my advice should be taken with a grain of salt).
The sweetness of a new day.
Posted on | January 19, 2012 | 6 Comments
I used to hate mornings. I was one of those teenagers that could lounge in bed until 1:00PM, drag my butt downstairs, eat lunch, and drag myself back up to lay in bed some more. What a waste.
I still am not a “morning person” per say. I love sleeping. But I also really, really love that time in the mornings when my babies first wake and everyone is in a happy mood. Their bedhead and sleepy eyes are so precious to me. And when I walk into Sully’s room and he says, “Oh, hi mommy!” Be still my heart. Two babies in footed PJs? Nothing is better.
There is something so fresh and new about the rising sun, the smell of a Diet Coke (no coffee here, folks), the smile of the baby as he sees me over the edge of his crib, and the sweetness of a toddler reaching for me to start his new day. Even though everyone needs a new diaper, breakfast, kisses, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, not that oatmeal but this one, and the pink spoon instead of the blue, I soak up my minutes in the morning. They aren’t quiet. They aren’t peaceful. But they are ours.
I keep thinking that it won’t be long before I’m working a job and rushing around to get the chlidren out the door to school. It won’t be long before I’ll have to have everyone dressed and fed before seven and the weekends will be the only time I get to laze around with my babies. I know many mamas and daddys, including my own husband, who don’t get this time every day. And I try to remind myself, even when my Diet Coke gets spilled by a crazy toddler and the baby decides that he will only be held all day long, that I am lucky.
I am fortunate to have this time. So I take a deep breath, kiss a mopheaded toddler, and brace for the rest of our day.
Bamboo Love
Posted on | January 18, 2012 | 17 Comments
When we purchased our new home, it was filled with old carpet, cracked tiles, and peeling parquet floors. The carpet was probably the worst. In our big bonus room, it was apparent that a dog (or something) was allowed to make the carpet a litter box. Though the smell wasn’t noticeable at first due to the exceedingly overwhelming number of scent frebreeze-y things throughout the house, it became stronger once we started removing all the smelly cover-up accessories.
Yuck.
So we poured over different types of flooring. We considered cork, different kinds of tile, engineered floors, laminate, and even carpet. We liked the idea of cork, but were scared away after seeing how easily it can break apart. I kept picturing a stiletto heel (not that I wear them very often at all, anymore, but still) breaking through my floors. Laminate was affordable, but we knew we wouldn’t be happy with it in the long run. And carpet? Well. I just can’t love it. With two children and a dog, I’ve seen the damage my family can do to carpet. It ain’t pretty. And the upkeep for us would be far too much. Tile can be beautiful, but I don’t love how it can feel cold and uninviting if you don’t pick just the right colors. We also were interested in finding something that could go throughout the entire house (except the bathrooms). Our kitchen is pretty small at only 127 sq. ft., and we want to do whatever we can to help it feel big and open. We finally settled on an engineered hardwood floor. We knew we wanted something we could install ourselves, and the engineered floor had a “Quick Click” system that makes for easy install. We went to Lumber Liquidators to check out our floor in person. We had budgeted and knew we could afford to replace flooring in the entire front of the house first, which meant we needed floors for the bonus room, living room, kitchen, dining room, and foyer (a little over 1000sq.ft.).
Too red. We thought we loved the Brazillian Koa, but in person? The red was too much for us. It was beautiful, but we just didn’t feel like it matched the character of our home.
And that’s when we met Bamboo.
Disappointed with the look of the engineered floor, we talked to the floor guy (Mike from the Charlotte, NC, store…he’s wonderful!), and we tried to figure out other options. He mentioned bamboo, and we shrugged and said, “Sure, let’s take a look.” He pulled out a piece of bamboo to show us how strong it us. Unlike other woods, bamboo is compressed the whole way through with a process that makes it incredibly strong. Twice as hard as Oak, Bamboo is meant to withstand very high-traffic areas. It’s more water and bacteria resistant than other woods, so it’s perfect for a kitchen. It regrows after being cut down, so it’s super eco-friendly. Mike beat the crap out of the bamboo in front of us with a piece of Oak. The Oak shattered, and the Bamboo didn’t have a single scratch or dent. Amazeballs.
At less than $3.50 a square foot (after our discounts for military and buying 1000 sq. feet), we were sold. You also have to look into a vapor barrier and insulayment. When you’re looking at new floors, be sure to consider these added expenses. They changed our total a bit more drastically than we original figured, but we decided it was worth it.
Each box has different color variations because of the creation process, and the result is gorgeous.
Here’s a sneak peak of what is to come…
Taylor is going to play blogger for the day and take you through a step-by-step installation process. He and my dad managed to get two rooms and the foyer completed over the course of a couple days without ever having installed floors. Even though it was time consuming, Taylor was surprised with how easily the floors were to lay.
Overall? I am thrilled. No joke, I teared up when I saw the pictures of the finished product. I was playing babysitter to the boys, so I couldn’t go help. Seeing the hard work Taylor and my dad put into our house was unbelievable and incredibly touching to me. I can’t wait to share it all with you!
We were not compensated by Lumber Liquidators in any way to share this information with you. We just like spreading the word when someone runs a great business and is very helpful. We had a wonderful experience with them and would recommend them to anyone.
When co-sleeping doesn’t work.
Posted on | January 17, 2012 | 23 Comments
There are a few things I don’t blog about. Arguments with my husband. Details about his work. Politics. Religion. And sleep training. These little pieces of my life are held close to me. When I first started blogging, I wrote about using Ferber to help teach Sully how to sleep on his own. I was an exhausted, new mama with a deployed husbad, and my few words on Ferber brought about a great, big fuss. Some people agreed with me whole-heartedly. Some people thought I was the worst mama in the entire world. I learned after that post that sleep training was something best left to my home. And when a fellow blogger received a some stinging backlash last week after her post on sleep training her one-year-old, I was reminded as to why I tend to stear clear of the subject. She was told of studies that have proven that if she lets her baby “cry it out,” her baby will have brain damage. People failed to mention that the study in question is regarding newborns, not one-year-olds, and it was considering extensive, neglectful crying and lack of nurturing from the parents. They also didn’t mention that after sleep deprivation becomes a habit, children (and adults) produce more chemicals causing the brain to stay awake even more. When they brain can’t shut down to rest, it can’t perform and function the way it should. But I digress…She was also called cruel and a bad mother. Several women stated something to the effect of, “Oh, we ALL know about sleep deprivation, but I sucked it up and did what I should do as a mom,” (aka, I’m a better mom than you will ever be). Other people applauded her for her honesty (me included).
And that’s the thing about sleep training; everyone has an opinion. Everyone feels strongly about it. Either they did it, and they swear it was the best thing they ever did as a parent. Or they would never, ever, ever, ever do it. Ever.
I can respect that.
Sleep training is not an easy thing to do. It’s not for everyone.
And honestly? For awhile, I didn’t really think it was going to be for Arlo. Yes, we did it with Sully, but he was a horrible sleeper from the beginning. I was exhausted to the point of it being dangerous, and I needed a break. Sleep training him lead to helping him become a wonderful sleeper who loves his crib and rarely fights naps or bedtime. He sleeps 12+ hours every night. He naps or rests for two hours most afternoons. It’s hard to beat the awesome sleep schedule he now has. But Arlo was different.
From the first week we brought him home, we kept Arlo in our bed. I was nervous about it because Taylor can be a very rough sleeper, but I am hyperaware of his every move. Bed-sharing made our nights easier. I could roll over, nurse him, and we would both drift off into sleep again. But then Arlo began refusing to nurse. So I had to get out of bed, pump, make a bottle, get back into bed, feed him, and put the bottle away before I could go back to sleep. Fine. It wasn’t any fun, but bed-sharing took the step of having to go get the baby from another room out of the equation, so I was still okay with it. We were all getting decent sleep. Arlo would crash as soon as he was fed, and neither Taylor nor I were willing to give up the great sleep we were getting. We by-passed that horrible, breaking exhaustion phase that most people experience with new babies. We knew we didn’t want him the bed forever, but we thought we could easily move him to his crib because he was such a great sleeper. We tried for awhile with varying luck. Some nights, he would sleep in his crib until 2:00AM or so, and then we would bring him to bed. This situation worked well for all of us. We got some time without a baby in the bed, and he got his snuggles. Win/win.
About a month ago, all of this started changing. He began taking much more time to get to sleep at night. Sometimes, it takes me up to an hour to get him down. After he’s down, he often wakes after ten or fifteen minutes, and I have to start the whole song and dance again. Then, instead of drifting back asleep after eating, he whines screams, kicks, and cries. Despite being swaddled with a paci and snug under my arm, he’s pissed. Every. single. night. I have begun spending lots of time in the glider attempting to get him back to sleep at 12,:00 2:00, 3:00, and sometimes even 4:00AM. After a night of being up most of the time, he is now waking between 5:00-6:00AM consistently. I’m a walking zombie most days, and he’s so tired that he isn’t acting like his usual, happy baby self. I’m not able to be the mama I want to be when I’m so tired I break into tears over having a hard time getting the cap off the apple juice. When I don’t want to play outside or run any errands, I’m not the mama I should be.
I know there are milestones that can cause sleep regressions. I know about teething and growth spurts.
And I also know, that sometimes? Co-sleeping isn’t for everyone. Sometimes, it works wonderfully and the parents and children love it. And sometimes, it causes everyone in the family to lose sleep at night and sanity to slip away. Sometimes, there isn’t anything to blame for a lack of sleep other than bad habits forming. Arlo is getting accustomed to waking up constantly throughout the night. It’s becoming a habit. He’s not hungry (and will often even get angry if I try to feed him). For us, co-sleeping just isn’t working anymore. I can’t function on little-to-no sleep. Arlo isn’t functioning the way he should. Sully isn’t getting the attention he needs and wants.
We don’t know what method we will use. Believe me, there isn’t a book, method, or study we haven’t read and considered. We have some thinking to do, but something has to change. Something will change. I can also tell you that I probably won’t share the method we chose unless asked privately. Afterall, this blog is my space, and I refuse to allow people to insult my parenting over something like sleep training. After seeing the shitstorm sleep training can cause, I’m too chicken to go there. I’ve been fortunate enough that when I have complain about our complete lack of sleep on my Facebook page, even people who disagree with sleep training have been respectful in their opinion. I so appreciate that. But I’m not gonna put it out in the open here, I don’t believe.
Turquoise and Orange Living Room
Posted on | January 13, 2012 | 10 Comments
Lately, I’ve been dreaming of a peacock-colored couch, splashes of orange, and some hint of modernity in our living room. I threw together a little mood board with some of my ideas.
The couch is the Blake sofa from West Elm in Lagoon. It’s a velvet couch (swoon), and I am obsessed.
The loveseat is actually a leather loveseat I am currently adoring at a local store called “Furniture Finds.” This picture is one I just scraped up on the internet somewhere, but it’s a similar color and style to the leather one I so adore.
The rug is from RugsUSA, and it’s hard to tell, but it’s sparkly cowhide. I’ve always loved the way a cowhide rug looks in an updated living room, and this one is no exception.
The chair and side table are from Joss and Main, and are currently on sale for the next couple days. You have to have a membership to Joss and Main to shop (if you want an invite, leave a comment, and I’ll shoot you one). They have awesome deals. I just purchased a bench seat from them last week for over $200 off. Sweet.
The lamp is from Shades of Light, but I’ve seen similar ones at Target right now for WAY cheaper. I can’t bring myself to pay anymore than $50 per lamp since the likelihood of a toddler knocking them off a table are pretty high.
The pillows are all from Alice Lane . I adore Alice Lane pillows, but I find them all a bit pricey. I’ll probably hunt around on Etsy and in Target to see if I can find similar ones at a much lower price.
The coffee table is West Elm. I love a round, glass coffee table, but it can be hard to find ones that don’t look flimsy or cheap. This one is deliciously solid, and I love the clean lines.
I have a buffet I plan on painting a lovely, rust orange to go behind the sofa.
I probably will change my mind 1,454,908 more times before I actually fill this room, but I’m loving these colors right this minute. What about you? Any rooms you’re decorating in your mind these days?
Making it work…always.
Posted on | January 11, 2012 | 16 Comments
I think parenting and marriage can be very difficult things to balance. Both are wonderful, amazing, glues that hold your world together, and yet? Sometimes they butt heads, making the nights long and leaving you wondering just how to do it “all.”
How do you spend a day comforting a sick baby and still embrace your husband when you’re all touched out and exhausted?
How do you wipe noses, change diapers, mop floors and cook dinner, and still feel sexy?
How do you watch cartoons, read books, and rock and rock and rock, and not retreat into your room alone for hours when your husband arrives home and takes the load for you?
Taylor and I don’t have a perfect marriage. Anyone who says they do, is lying. But, we work on it. Constantly. And work isn’t a bad thing. You know how you always hear, “You shouldn’t have to work at it if it’s right,” in reference to relationships?
Lies. All lies.
You should work at it. A marriage is a constantly changing and growing entity that needs nurturing, communication, love, and yes, fights. Because if you’re not fighting, you aren’t caring anymore. If you aren’t working to better yourself and your marriage, then it isn’t worth it to you anymore.
I think my biggest flaw in being a wife and a mother is giving too much to parenting and not enough to my marriage. Sometimes, I let myself wear down. I use up all of me during the day, attending to the boys and doing everything they need, and then I find a hard time stretching myself to be giving to my husband. I don’t mean that I should have to cater to his every needs the way I do to the boys. I mean, I should have enough left in the gas tank at the end of the day to hold him close and ask how his day was. When he asks how mine was, I shouldn’t brain dump all the troubles and problems of the day into one big messy pile. I should try to be less negative. More caring. I need to remember to ask when I need something. When I need a hug. When I need a kiss. When I need someone to take the trash out. Instead of assuming he just knows what I need, and thinking I shouldn’t have to remind him.
Yes, my children deserve me to give my all to them, too. But most of all? My children need to see a mommy and daddy who are so desperately in love, that they chose to create a physical reminder of that love in them. They need to feel supported and stable by two parents who will always choose each other first. Not at the expense of our children, but for our children. Not materialistically, not competitively. Our love for our children is obviously a very different love than that for each other. We believe in a marriage-centered family. We believe that, by loving each other with a deep passion, we will teach our children to love, to sacrifice, and to believe in forever. We want our children to see in us what they should look for in an everlasting love for themselves someday.
Every now and then, we sit down and say to each other, “What can I do to make us better? Where am I failing? Where am I succeeding?” We find it’s too easy to get lost in the monotony and busyness of our days and lose a sense of urgency in marriage if we don’t do these ‘checks.’ It’s too easy to go to bed early because we’re tired instead of staying up and talking and extra thirty minutes. It’s too easy to do bathtime routines and kitchen clean-up separately instead of tackling it together and using it as bonding time for the whole family.
No. We certainly are not perfect. We couldn’t give marriage classes on how to be the perfect married couple. But we are learning, every day, what works for us. And almost seven years after falling in love over a beer and a pick-up truck at a college orientation party, we are still head-over-heels for each other. That’s gotta say something.
"I'm a twenty-five-year old mama to two little boys and married to the love of my life. I have a serious Diet Coke addiction and a tendency to overshare. This is the story of us as we flounder through raising our wild, little boys, moving a million times, and buying and renovating our 1968 Ranch home."
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